Handing Out Christmas Gifts to The Children Who Really Need it! Slideshow Slideshow

Handing Out Christmas Gifts to The Children Who Really Need it! Slideshow Slideshow: TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Handing Out Christmas Gifts to The Children Who Really Need it! Slideshow Slideshow ★ to Cozumel. Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor

Sea Turtle Program Cozumel Mexico

Sea Turtle Salvation Program needs more support

Nora Hinkel in Cozumel, Mexico

Since 1989, the Sea Turtle Salvation Program officially tries to protect the sea turtles arriving to lay their eggs on the beach in Cozumel, México. Thanks to interested and committed voluntary helpers, the members of the Program take care of the detection of turtle nests, the release and rescue of endangered turtles during their nesting and hatching season.

Turtles in Cozumel Mexico

This year, the first turtle nest was detected on 10^th April; the nesting season will last until August so that the baby turtles will hatch until September. When the turtles, which are mostly green turtles and loggerheads, arrive on the sandy beach of Cozumel they lay about 100 to 120 eggs each. After 52 to 54 days, the baby turtles hatch with a birth rate of more than 90%.

The birth rate has remarkably increased during the last 10 years, not only thanks to the biologist José Martin Coral Perez (48), called Pantera, and his helpers. Each year the volunteers are sent by different brigades such as the Municipal Council, the Marine Park Cozumel, and an group of Cozumelanians called Áak which means “Turtle” in Mayan language. Every night they drive to the eastern shore of the island and detect nests under Pantera’s leadership – he and his nephew Edgar Sosa Coral (17) belong to the very few who are actually able to find the nests in the sand and to determine the species of the turtle immediately.

Turtle eggs in Cozumel Mexico

Therefore, Pantera as the “heart of this Program” is working on the beach every night and day during the high season, searching for new nests. Up to 70 new nests are found each night, two days they need to search the 20km long beach – not counting the northern and southern coast because the thick mangrove forest and rough road conditions obstruct the path leading to them. Furthermore, the detection of the nests consumes a lot of time: As soon as a fresh nest is found, they note down among other things the date, time, exact place with help of a GPS, species of sea turtle, and number of nest. In this way, to nest can easily be found when the baby turtles hatch to clean the beach afterwards.

To this day, more than 2300 nests have been registered just on the east beach this year. These are around 2000 nests less than last year because a turtle can lay eggs only every two years; the following year, more than 4000 thousand new turtle nests are expected again. On average, five of a thousand turtles return after 20 years when they are mature themselves.

turtle in Cozumel Mexico

This low number is due to several reasons: natural predators such as crabs, birds, and fish catch a huge amount of them within the first day. Also pollution impedes the turtle’s way to and from the beach, and dogs and other pets like to dig up the eggs. Some tourists want to see them as well but do not know that moving the egg carelessly hurts and probably kills the embryo because it becomes attached to the eggshell six hours after the egg was laid.

The members of the Salvation Program want to raise public awareness and are eager to organize trips and pass on their knowledge to everybody who is interested in turtles, since many people do not even know that there are turtles nesting in Cozumel. So visitors are always welcome but not at the expense of the turtles. Everyone should be careful not to disturb the turtles while they are laying their eggs and visitors are demanded to keep calm and use infrared instead of white light only. Road and beach are shut for everyone from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. during the nesting season so that visitors are only allowed in company of one of the official brigades.

Sea turtle program Cozumel Mexico

The brigades are making a high effort to keep on protecting the turtles and secure their environment, preventing it from being transformed into another hotel zone. So that the Salvation Program is successful in future, volunteers and especially donations are urgently needed. Donations can be made in form of equipment such as flashlights, batteries, and radio sets as well as in form of money. The money they get they want to invest in a museum and further promote scientific marine research. Just now, Tania Gabriela Chávez Flores (22), postgraduate at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), is working on the issue to what extent the climate change influences the development of the Chelonia Mydas, the green turtle, until the stage of a newborn.

In future, public interest and financial support play an important role for the sea turtles in Cozumel – for further research on marine wildlife as well the salvation of the sea turtles and die preservation of their natural habitat.

For mor info: www.divechoicemexico.com and http://cactustvcozumel.wordpress.com/turtle-tv-cozumel/

The first time I took scuba diving lessons – life became even more beautiful

My first time I took scuba diving lessons was actually right here on the island of Cozumel in Mexico. I was doing my internship of Hotel Management and I got hooked with the virus.

It felt both amazing and surreal being weightless in this different world. It was almost as if I was discovering this whole new planet with all the new shapes and colors and spectacular marine life.

This new world became my second home and over the years it has become my office.

Now I have more than 3000 dives under my weight belt and I have traveled because of this hobby all continents together with my husband Ricardo.

I have taught hundreds of great people how to learn to scuba dive and I will never forget my first impressions of breathing under water.

I want to thank all my students who took a scuba diving certification with me for reliving this moment every time I teach!

Ready for your first dive?

It is never too late to start your first dive.

My students have ranged from 10 years old to 76 years old.

Learn about scuba certification courses and scuba diving experience courses with Dive Choice Mexico right here where the best scuba diving is right at your doorstep.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

 Thank you Wally Diehl for your pictures!

It is the time to go and see the whale sharks again!

The whale shark is a fascinating creature to behold. With no known predators and a completely peaceful nature they are huge, harmless and sublime.
The first time we have seen a whale shark was around the waters Zanzibar in Tanzania.
I remember seeing a big shadow surfacing and we did our surface interval between our dives. I jumped in the water and when I saw this wonder I was crying in my mask. It was so beautiful what we witnessed at that moment! The whale shark was around 6 meters/20 feet and I thought that was huge!

Now we are living in Cozumel Mexico since 6 years and we go and swim with the whale sharks at least once a year. The first year we went to the island of Holbox the people were saying that they saw at least hundreds of them and we were like: “Yeah right, if we would see only a couple of them we would be extremely happy!”
We did see hundreds of them that year together with lots of manta rays. Too many to count and all of them so close. The mantas were jumping out of the water. You could hear the splashes from everywhere and the leaps where repeated several times in succession. Why do they do that? It looked like they were playing! The size of the whale sharks was huge! In average 30 feet. You feel so small when you are snorkeling next to these fish. It also looks like they are not moving at all! But you really need to swim to keep up with them. When you are looking in their eyes it is amazing and when to come and swim towards you at the surface they really look big.

Now the season begins again to swim with whale sharks: for more information look at http://www.divechoicemexico.com/


Some whale sharks facts:
As the largest fish in the sea, reaching lengths of 40 feet (12 meters) or more, whale sharks have an enormous menu from which to choose. Their favorite meal is plankton

Plankton is made up of animals and plants that either float passively in the water, or possess such limited powers of swimming that they are carried from place to place by the currents.
The word plankton comes from the Greek word planktos, which means ‘wandering’ or ‘drifting’. Plankton dominates the well-lit surface layers of the world's oceans.

They scoop these tiny plants and animals up, along with any small fish that happen to be around, with their colossal gaping mouths while swimming close to the water's surface.
The whale shark is a filter feeder. In order to feed, it juts out its huge jaws and sucks in everything in the vicinity. It then shuts its mouth, forcing water to filter out of its gills. The whale shark's flattened head sports a blunt snout above its mouth with short barbells protruding from its nostrils. Its back and sides are gray to brown with white spots among pale vertical and horizontal stripes, and its belly is white. Its two dorsal fins are set rearward on its body, which ends in a large dual-lobbed caudal fin.

Sexual maturity in both sexes may not occur until the sharks are over 9meters/30 feet in length. Age estimates for whale sharks are as high as 60 years, but no one really knows how long this species lives.

Different geographic locations appear to be preferred at various times of the year. Whale sharks alternatively may undertake either fairly localized or large-scale transoceanic migrations, the movements governed by the timing and location of production pulses and possibly by breeding behavior. Seasonal migrations have been postulated for various areas but more information is needed to confirm these patterns.

Reproduction
It was unclear whether it is oviparous (egg cases expelled from the female's body and hatched on the sea floor) or ovoviviparous (egg cases hatching in the mother's uteri, with the female giving birth to live young). Finally in 1995, an 11-meter female whale shark was harpooned off the eastern coast of Taiwan and 300 fetal specimens, ranging in length from 42 to 63cm, were taken from the two uteri. This discovery proved that the species is a live bearer, with an ovoviviparous mode of development. The egg-capsules of this whale shark were amber colored, with a smooth texture, and possessed a respiratory fissure (opening) on each side.

Los Atolones in Cozumel Mexico

We went yesterday to the Atolones on the other side of the island. Because the sea was rough we decided to go over land with 4 wheel drives, just to check it out.
The day was fun, but the road was very challenging. We helped a local expat out of the sand, because his car got stuck. Do not go there with a normal car. We rented Yamaha renos.
After 1 hour we arrived at the spot and we snorkeled the reef. It is about 20-30 feet there. The formations are very different from the formations on the west coast of Cozumel. They are really like "tables" in the water reaching the surface and it is great to see how the waves break into them. Lot's of huge soft corals, like fans and gorgonians. Great visibility, a lot of passages to swim through, at least 3 schools of surgeon fish and again a huge octopus with 2 huge conches.
Afterwards we had a great picnic on this beautiful beach and the day was just perfect! We love going to explore new places on our little island!

Have a great day!!

http://www.divechoicemexico.com/

Why would they kill 70 bull sharks?

Today we have got the sad news that the Mexican government has authorized to kill 70 bull sharks in the area of Cancun after a tourist attack earlier this month.
Also the government had decided more than a year ago that they would get millions of cubic feet of sand from the north part of the Island of Cozumel to fix the vanishing beaches around Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
I do not understand these things.

What I do understand is the beauty of the Marine life I see almost on a daily basis here in Cozumel and that it really hurts me when they jeapordize our heritance to our children.
I love my work, I love the twinkle in the eye of my students when they see this beauty for the first time in their lifes and I love the certified divers coming back diving with us again because they are part of our diving family.

Can you make me understand or do I already understand what is important?


Karen

www.divechoicemexico.com

Thank you for coming to Cozumel!

After years in the corporate rat race my Mexican husband Ricardo and I decided to emigrate from The Netherlands to the little island of Cozumel to start our own dive shop Dive Choice Mexico. Exactly 3 weeks after we arrived we got hit by the biggest hurricane on the island ever, Wilma.
It took 60 hours for us in a bathroom and 2 weeks our little palapa was flooded and no work for at least 5 months.
After that we got "hit" by the Swine flu which was thousands of miles away and no case on the island at all. The consequence was no tourism for a couple of weeks.
Now currrently we get the bad press about the drug wars, again this is in the border towns thousands of miles away and it affects tourism coming to our little island. The only thing what can happen here is that you strain your ancle over the uneven pavements on the island.
I do not know what external happening, which we have no influence of, will affect our beloved business next, but we see no reason to get out of this paradise and I want to thank all the foreigners who are critical in reading the media and still come to enjoy their holidays in Cozumel Mexico!

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."Mark Twain

Let's blow bubbles together!

Sunny regards from Cozumel

Karen

http://www.divechoicemexico.com/